7/09/2012

Kartique (Mt Lawley, Perth WA)

559 Beaufort St
Mt Lawley Western Australia 6050
(08) 6161 7179
Website
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Hours:
    Wed-Sat 10:30 - 17:00
    Sun 11:00 - 16:00

Kartique is a  chic gift shop selling jewellery, decoration and gift items, and  a small selection of vintage furniture. The name of the shop and their shop window convey well what you will find inside: arty ethnic real vintage pieces, and a few antiques. This is not an antiques shop per se, although some of the pieces sold are. They have a focus on ethnicity, affordable vintage, and  unique pieces
hand-crafted by foreign craftsmen or local designers. There is harmony between the ambience of the shop and the items they sell - all very organic and zen. 

Half of the shop is devoted to silver and stones jewellery, with a small selection of mate gold, and the inner part of the shop occupied by furniture and decoration items. They have super-cute mugs and tea cups, cheap and wonderfully colourful Indian Jewellery cases, colourful cushions and items of furniture that I would certainly buy if I had a house of my own and a a bit of money to spare.  

The prices are less expensive than you could think before entering. Most of the unique antique jewellery pieces are around 100-150 bucks, which isn't cheap, but compared to average mass produced jewellery sold in Perth, it is. Of course, we like it beautiful, good and affordable, and there are many things that fit the bill at Kartique, with silver an stone earrings as cheap as 50-60 bucks. The furniture is not cheap, you can expect that, but many of the home-wares and decoration items are reasonably priced. For example, the Hindu jewellery wooden cases are 20 bucks, and a huge house-shapped one was 50. Of course, if you, like me, like the truly special items, then you can only sigh and enjoy the view. 

The older lady attending the shop is very welcoming, serviceable, and very classy and nice to customers. The way I like it! 


I do not like finding products unpriced in any shop. You ask for the price and get the price, but I never know  if you are getting the real price or what the sellers think is what you personally should pay. I know they have a lot of stuff at Kartique, but pricing everything in a shop is a must - to me. 


Kartique's website is nice, but has just a few items on display and for purchase, and some of them don't even mention the price. I wonder why people bother to create online shopping sites and then put so little effort in making it appealing and fully functional, so we have everything in the shop available online, too. On the other hand, Kartique has wonderful stuff, so why displaying the boring pieces plus the super-expensive instead of the whole range of wonderful mid priced? It truly escapes my understanding. 

Kartique is a great place for gifts, and to add a bit of ethnic classy flavour to your space no matter you are twenty something or sixty something. They do lay-bys.